Peacefulness

Yannis Ritsos

Morning sleep, punctured by the voice of cicadas and birds.
Light fights its way into the room. The woman got up noiselessly,
closed the windows, just as he wished. "It's early.
You're still sleepy," she said to him and covered him with the sheet. The sea
climbed from his toenails up to his Adam's apple
with slow, blue, internal steps. And an instant later
the smoke of fields and the hooves of horses are heard in the street.



from Small Dedications (1960-1965) [Collected Poems Delta' -- pg 143]